It’s hard to imagine how shocking this film was when it first broke on the film scene in 1968. There’s never been anything quite like it, though it’s inspired numerous pale imitations. Part of the terror lies in the fact that this one’s shot in such a raw, unadorned fashion it feels like a home movie, and all the more authentic for that. Another is that it draws us into its world gradually, content to establish a merely spooky atmosphere before leading us through a horrifically logical progression that we could hardly have anticipated. The story is simple. Radiation from a fallen satellite has caused the dead to walk and hunger for human flesh. Once bitten, you become one of them. And the only way to kill one is by a shot or blow to the head. We follow a group holed up in a small farmhouse to fend off the inevitable onslaught of the dead. And it’s the tensions between the members of this unstable, makeshift community that drive the film. Night of the Living Dead establishes its savagery as a necessary condition of life. Marked by fatality and a grim humour, it gnaws through to the bone, then proceeds on to the marrow.–Jim GayGeorge Romero’s classic 1968 zombie-fest Night of the Living Dead (shot in black and white) offers some disturbing images, even decades later. In a Pittsburgh suburb people are being stalked by zombies ravenous for human flesh. In a house whose occupant has already been slain, two separate groups of people unite and board themselves in, hoping to fend off the advancing ghouls. Through radio and TV reports they learn that radiation from outer space is thought to be responsible for the wave of zombie attacks all over the eastern United States. Once the humans are trapped, Romero shifts the focus to the internal feuding between them as they decide how to handle their dreadful situation. What unfolds is an examination of human nature, and of the fear and selfishness that keep many citizens from getting involved in the world’s problems. Appropriately, both the zombies, and the authorities who later hunt them, are equally soulless. This film could also be read as a criticism of white males–it is not merely a coincidence that the film’s two most rational, constructive characters are a woman and a black man. It is also no coincidence that the sequel Dawn of the Dead (1978) takes place in a mall infested by the undead–a perfect analogy for consumer culture. –Bryan Reeseman, Amazon.com

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Samsung BD-C5300 Blu-Ray Player Wi-Fi Ready with 6 free titles (300, Up, Toy Story, Bruno, Mamma Mia, Sweeney Todd)

Probably the most magical and entertaining game you will ever play.

We cannot recommend this one enough. Lovingly crafted by Amanita Design (of Samorost fame), Machinarium is an outstanding example what happens when close group of designers pour their heart and soul into something very special. This should be the benchmark for all adventure games.
Simply Beautiful.
Enjoy – Notcot

Collectors Edition includes:

• Additional CD with the games music and 5 additional bonus sound tracks
• Booklet including never seen before concept art
• A3 Poster
• A printed walkthrough

Machinarium is a puzzle video game developed by Amanita Design. The goal of Machinarium is to solve a series of puzzles and brain teasers. The puzzles are linked together by an overworld consisting of a traditional point and click adventure story.

The overworlds most radical departure is that only objects within the player characters reach can be clicked on. Machinarium is notable in that it contains no dialogue, neither spoken nor written. The game instead uses a system of animated thought bubbles.

Machinarium : Collectors Edition (PC/Mac DVD)

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Product Description
Zombies meet SteamPunk in this account of the fall of Perm’ to the Untot undead hordes.
This short story is the gateway into a realm and a time that never was, when undead have risen, spreading from an unknown source in Eastern Europe, to stalk the living.

Will the extreme science of the day be able to beat back the lifeless invaders? That remains to be seen!

Untot overrun of Perm’ – Steampunk and zombies collide in a small town.

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The Call of Cthulhu: The Celebrated Story by H.P. Lovecraft

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Amazon.co.uk Review
In Tetsuo: The Iron Man Shinya Tsukamoto draws on the marriage of flesh and technology that inspires so much of David Cronenberg’s work and then twists it into a Manga-influenced cyberpunk vision. A man (Tomoroh Taguchi) awakens from a nightmare in which his body is helplessly fusing with the metal objects around him, only to find it happening to him in real life… or is it? Haunted by memories of a hit and run (eerily prophetic of Cronenberg’s Crash), the man knows this ordeal could be a dream, a fantastic form of divine retribution, or perhaps technological mutation born of guilt and rage.

Shot in bracing black and white on a small budget, Tsukamoto puts a demented conceptual twist on good old-fashioned stop-motion effects and simple wire work, giving his film the surreal quality of a waking dream with a psychosexual edge (resulting in the film’s most disturbing scene). The story ultimately takes on an abstract quality enhanced by the grungy look and increasingly wild images as they take to the streets in a mad chase of technological speed demons. This first entry in his self-titled “Regular Sized Monster Series” was followed by a full-colour sequel, Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer, which trades the muddy experimental atmosphere for a big-budget sheen but can’t top the cybershock to the system this movie packs.–Sean Axmaker

Tetsuo: The Iron Man

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Amazon.co.uk Review
Caught midway between 1970s soft-porn clunker The Story of O and Bunuel’s sado-masochistic fantasy Belle de Jour, the 1968 erotic curio Girl on a Motorcycle is one of Marianne Faithfull’s chief claims to notoriety. She stars as Rebecca, a leather-clad, former bookstore clerk in search of sexual fulfilment who flees her dependable schoolteacher husband for a dangerous liaison with Daniel (Alain Delon), a dashing Professor addicted to speed. The story is told entirely in flashbacks as Rebecca rockets along the road, having donned her leathers and walked out on her sleeping husband at the crack of dawn. It all must have seemed fairly daring and provocative in 1968, providing viewers with ample opportunities to view a naked Faithfull at the height of her allure. But today the existential musings of the lead character seem achingly pretentious, the erotic symbolism merely gawky and unintentionally amusing: the sight of Alain Delon with a phallic pipe dangling from his mouth is like something out of a Rene Magritte painting. The sex scenes between Delon and Faithfull are all swamped in a polarised visual effect that, while garish and psychedelic, is dated and distinctly unerotic. Director Jack Cardiff is better known as a cinematographer on classics such as The African Queen and Black Narcissus. Among Cardiff’s other directorial credits is a worthy adaptation of DH Lawrence’s Sons & Lovers, but Girl on a Motorcycle is a saucy road movie with no final destination.

On the DVD: This DVD version is misleadingly presented as being the fully restored and uncut version of the film. Yet it was the US version not the European one that was heavily cut (and titillatingly re-titled “Naked Under Leather”). The restoration certainly does not refer to the print quality: although the colours are vivid and bright, the print used to master the DVD (in 16:9 anamorphic format) is extremely grainy and, at times, speckled with dirt and scratches. Included as one of the special features, a theatrical trailer loaded with innuendo shows just how much the film was marketed to a prurient audience. Director Jack Cardiff provides an audio commentary but has few revelatory things to say about his film beyond technical considerations, and even makes several clunking errors (recalling his casting decisions concerning a scene that takes place in a provincial German café, he raves about how he strove to find authentic French locals!). He does reveal that the film’s use of a voice-over was inspired by the internal monologue that forms the basis of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Given Cardiff’s age and experience one feels that he must have more interesting anecdotes and insights, making this commentary feel like a wasted opportunity. –Chris Campion

Girl on a Motorcycle

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Amazon.co.uk Review
I Spit on Your Grave, writer-director Meir Zarchi’s controversial story of rape and revenge, has lost none of its ability to shock viewers since it first gained notoriety in 1978. Camille Keaton (grand-niece of Buster Keaton and, later, Zarchi’s wife) stars as a young woman who is terrorised and then brutally assaulted by four men while on vacation. After slowly pulling herself together, she methodically tracks down and butchers each of the perpetrators. Zarchi’s film has been consistently accused of celebrating violence against women, and while the rape scenes are graphic, they also lack the voyeuristic qualities that earmark other similarly plotted exploitation films. If anything, Zarchi is guilty of awkward scripting; the dialogue is leaden, and Keaton’s transformation from victim to avenger is too swift. But to label him a pornographer is wrong, and while the film is challenging–perhaps more than most audiences can bear–its depiction of the psychology of violence is undeniably powerful. –Paul Gaita

I Spit On Your Grave

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